Learn how to – Be aware: Examining Cloud Backup Solutions by AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud

Learn how to – Be aware: Examining Cloud Backup Solutions by AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud.

Businesses of all types and sizes must protect their critical information, to ensure their success and survival. According to studies, 93 percent of organizations fold within two years if they lose data as a result of a disaster.

Today, more and more business are looking towards cloud backup solutions to cope with data protection challenges. Why is this the case? Simply because it is costly, complex and unreliable to protect data with traditional tape backup solutions, and as businesses are handling increasing amounts of data the problem is growing.

Cloud data protection solutions integrate secure cloud technologies with advancements in disk-based backup. These solutions provide organizations with a speedy and assured way to recover their core enterprise data.

The Importance of Cloud Backup in a Disaster

Cloud backup is a type of cloud storage where data is stored and retrieved, from interconnected and distributed cloud-based solutions. Organizations and businesses can use cloud-based backup resources to securely store their data on the internet through a storage service supplier.

Organizations often opt for cloud-based storage solutions in favor of storing data locally on a physical disk, such as a hard drive. With cloud backup, users can access the service of the organization from afar through a secure login application. Users can back up their files from their computer or a data center onto the online storage server, via an encrypted and safe connection.

Businesses are steadily more reliant on technology to meet their growing demands. Cloud technology thus has such a central role in disaster recovery. Organizations can use cloud technology to back up sensitive and essential files and to recover data they lost via a cyber-attack, natural disaster or accidental deletion. Cloud backups offer a more affordable alternative to a data center or outlaying money for additional equipment.

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud

Cloud computing has been in existence for over a decade now, however, three giants continue to take the lion’s share of the market. They are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud. As the climate of cloud networking changes, the divide between these three platforms is closing.

When your organization selects a cloud platform, it is essential to consider what each platform offers, and which tool best fits your organizational needs. Each platform has its own advantages and pitfalls as far as cloud computing is concerned. While all platforms offer more or less the same core services, they specialize in areas that make them more suited to different client bases.

Let’s take a look at these three service providers.

Amazon AWS

Amazon is the pioneer in the market of cloud computing. Amazon AWS backup platform offers document and procedures for aggregating and collating immense amounts of data. It has many features such as monitoring, configuration, and security. Many organizations choose AWS because of its extensive offerings, global reach, enterprise-friendly services, and flexibility.

Amazon offers pricing structures that are competitive with other cloud providers. They offer a per-hour payment basis, where your organization pays for the features it uses. Amazon also offers a free plan with limited computing capabilities and storage. The pricing structure is a sport, on demand and reserved. Your organization can select to pay for its services on a monthly basis. Amazon has been around for close to 12 years and has recruited world leading architects and developers to work on their AWS backup platform.

Microsoft Azure

Organizations can use this platform to protect, backup and restore their data in the Microsoft Cloud. Azure is a hybrid cloud platform that orientated towards, DevOps, the Internet of Things (IoT), and app development. Unlike Amazon, Microsoft focuses primarily on hybrid cloud networks. Clients can use on-premise hardware while also storing their data in the cloud. Privacy and security are paramount, and users can employ tools to isolate suspicious threads and devices in real-time.  

Microsoft’s pricing differs according to the produces the development team chooses to work with. Microsoft offers monthly or pre-paid options for a price based on per minute usage. A benefit of Azure is that companies who use a Windows OS can easily integrate Azure into their system. However, this also means that Azure may not be ideal for companies who use Linux, MacOS, or other OSs.

Google Cloud

Google cloud offers secure analytics and storage. Google Cloud is not as large as AWS and Azure in market share or services. Amazon and Microsoft’s platforms are suited to dealing with enterprise projects, however, Google’s platform could be useful for smaller companies, as smaller companies may not need to run hundreds of network programs.

Google has supported open source developments, making its platform an option for organizations that develop open source products. While Amazon and Microsoft employ basic machine learning solutions, Google cloud uses APIs that makes use of specific applications of machine learning including Google Translate and Cloud Speech-to-Text.

Google Cloud platform offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, billed on per-second or per-minute of usage. Users have pointed out that Google Cloud lacks support for native backup services. Google is depended on third-party partners and not in-service systems for disaster recovery and backup.

So how do Amazon, Azure, and Google compare in relation to computing, database and storage, and networking? Let’s take a look.

Computing

The central function of a computer is to process and calculate data. An efficient cloud provider should be able to carry out thousands of operation is a few minutes. Amazon EC2 offers essential computing functions to configure, deploy and manage virtual machines with the use of pre-configured or custom AMIs. Azure also provides virtual machines or virtual machine scale sets, and Google Cloud platform has Compute Engine.

Database and Storage

Storage is a core function of any cloud service. Amazon offers long-running storage service. Microsoft and Google offer short-running storage services. Users have been working with Amazon S3 for a long time and it provides tutorials to assist users, extensive documentation, articles, and library.

Networking

For networking, Amazon uses virtual private cloud, Google uses subnet and Azure uses virtual network. Amazon’s virtual private cloud and Azure’s virtual network are alike. They both allow for the integration of virtual machines into networks in the cloud. Users can also integrate and extend public or hybrid cloud with on-premise data centers.

Conclusion

In this page, we have conducted a cloud service comparison for AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud. The battle between these three platforms leads us to believe that whichever cloud service you choose, you will be satisfied. The competition between cloud service providers has led to reduced prices. So, organizations and individuals alike should take advantage of the current market climate and choose a cloud service provider that suits their needs.

Related Backup How to guides:

How to Backup and Restore Ubuntu, Debian & Linux Mint using Timeshift

How to Configure Cpanel Backups to S3 Object Store

How to Install Nakivo VMware Backup & Replication tool on Linux

How to Setup S3 Compatible Object Storage Server with Minio

How to Install Ceph Storage Cluster on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

How to Install Seafile Server On Ubuntu 18.04 LTS